US Supreme Court ruling on takings

I would agree the county didn't have the right to keep the $25k, but let's remember how all this came about. The homeowner owned a condo and lived there until she and her family decided she should move into a senior citizen community - and then forgot to pay property taxes! Whoops.

The county filed a tax lidn and the house was sold, it appears someone forgot or didn't care there was a mortgage on the house and a HOA lien for unpaid taxes (bet you didn't see THAT coming.) We already know the $25k would have been eaten up by the remaining mortgage and the HOA board would probably have no choice but to write off thousands of dollars in unpaid assessment.

I see both sides had a few brain farts in this situation. If she had 3 years to address the tax lien before the house was sold, I don't know why the family didn't do that. Ir sell tge condo in the first place and use the proceeds to pay for the new place (some of us know senior living ain't cheap at all.)

If your point was that there are are some HOA boards that take people's home for a pittance in HOA assessments, I know that's been a problem in some areas (I'm reminded of tbe Pro Publica article I posted that talked about this, although I can't remember when I posted it). However, I think the majority if HOAs like mine, only do this as a last resort.

We don't have non judicial foreclosure in my state and any foreclosure action isn't cheap and most of the time the most you can hope for is that the association gets some money back or at least see the house sold to a homeowner who will pay in full and on time. People know or should know the state of their pocketbook and if you're headng for trouble, the sooner you talk to the board about your situation and negotiate a payment plan, the better it can work out fir everyone.

One would think if a government agency cannot take more than it is actually owed, a quasi-governmental agency (an HOA) would have even less authority to take. How HOAs got the power of nonjudicial foreclosure is beyond me.